This invention relates to wireless communications and more specifically to providing information concerning wireless coverage areas along potential routes being considered for a journey.
Wireless communication devices, e.g. cellular handsets, personal digital assistants (PDA) with wireless capabilities, laptop computers enabled for wireless RF communications, etc., are now part of the culture of a substantial percentage of people in the United States. Different service providers are responsible for providing the infrastructure equipment and systems for supporting such wireless communications. While many, if not all, of the service providers provide wireless service for the largest cities and corresponding metropolitan areas, wireless coverage is still not ubiquitous. An area where communications is not supported may simply represent a location with too low a signal strength due to the user's handset going beyond the communication range of the cellular base station.
Wireless coverage becomes even less certain as a subscriber travels outside major metropolitan areas and away from major roadways, e.g. interstate highway system, in the United States. This is a result of the economics of providing wireless infrastructure systems. In more rural areas without a substantial concentration of subscribers or potential subscribers, it is economically unattractive to cellular service providers to build and maintain a sufficient number of cellular base stations to maintain substantially uninterrupted service areas. In an attempt to maximize possible coverage, most service providers have agreements with competing service providers to permit their customers to obtain service through the competing service provider network if it is viable in such rural areas. Such service provision is referred to as “inter-carrier roaming” and normally carries higher service fees than when the subscriber obtains service through the subscriber's primary network. Roaming requires the subscriber's handset to be compatible with the signaling format/protocol used by the roaming system, and this compatibility does not always exist. And even with the possibility of roaming, not all areas are served.
Many cellular service providers and Wi-Fi carriers provide information concerning service coverage areas. However, the specificity of this information is normally not sufficiently granular to allow subscribers or potential subscribers to accurately predict whether specific routes or roadways of importance to them, e.g. possible roads that could be traveled between an origination location and a destination, are adequately served by coverage. For example, a cellular service provider may list or show a rural town as being within the service area. From the cellular service provider's perspective, achieving a relatively high percentage of coverage, but less than 100%, of the rural town may constitute service coverage. However, it may not be clear based on information available from a wireless carrier if alternative roadways or sections along one of interest to the subscriber or potential subscriber are covered. Therefore, a need exists for wireless coverage information along a specified roadway and alternatives routes for travel.